“Why is that?” I grip Astaria’s neck a little tighter as she yet again lets out one of those smirking laughs.
“There are too many objects for me to discern with one resolution. We will have to proceed layer by layer. It will take some time. Also, if I am not very much mistaken, there are some reservoirs of either poison or explosives.”
“Both,” Astaria smiles. “I like to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what? A war of one?”
“War of one.” Her eyes brighten. “I like that. I like that a lot. That is what you should call me from now on.”
“You can remove the next layer of clothing,” the doctor says. “Watch the sharp shards.They’re loose.”
There is a tinkling of glass shards landing on the floor as I pull Astaria from the scanner and cut the next layer of dress from her body.
“What was the intention of these?”
“I can slip them into food or drinks. Or I can use them for distractions, making people think something is broken. Once I grabbed a fistful and squeezed them tight until my hand bled so they came and got me out of my cell.”
She makes her confession in a bright and cheerful tone very much at odds with the content of her message. We are a warlike species. This entire ship is dedicated to the art of war. I myself have taken many thousands of lives. There is something about the way she is speaking that gives me a chill. I should be immune to horrors of this nature, and yet this human has a way of creeping beneath my defenses and touching nerves I had entirely forgotten I had.
Astaria
“Ready for the next layer?”
I can’t help but laugh. I have spent so many years building up my defenses. I never knew anybody would have the opportunity to appreciate them this way. I find myself feeling rather proud as my little secrets are uncovered layer by layer. His big strong hands are deft and careful as he unwraps me like a present nobody wants.
“What were you going to do with a length of piano wire?”
I make a gesture toward my neck. Blackmane grimaces.
“Brutal,” he observes. “Where did you learn such behavior? Even among our kind it takes a certain temperament and years of training to become so fierce.”
“The next layer appears to be explosive,” the doctor warns. “Have your expository chat some other time.”
“Oh, yes. It is. If you pull the dress off, we’ll all explode.”
The doctor throws his big red alien hands up in the air at this point and leaves the room, apparently thoroughly irritated at this entire situation. I find it very interesting that Blackmane tolerates any sass from those on his ship. I had gathered he was the more brittle kind of ruler who would not allow anything like disrespect to exist in his realm.
“We’ll all explode, will we?” Blackmane clenches his hands into fists and perches them on his hips.
“Oh, yes. All of us.”
“And what’s the point of that, princess?”
“It is anti-ravage protection.”
“What kind of protection leaves you nonexistent?”
“The kind that stops me from experiencing terrible cruelties of the masculine kind. Or worse, being forced to carry the seed of a monstrous evil.”
His hands leave his hips. He looks as though he might perhaps understand.
“You are so afraid of being mated that you have swathed yourself in your own destruction,” he says, speaking as if he pities me. I take great and immediate offense.
“I am not afraid of being mated. I have heard stories of what aliens do to human women, how their tremendously strange appendages are too much for our flesh. How they take pleasure in destroying us. I will not be destroyed that way. Not by any alien.”
Not by you.
That part of my sentiment goes unexpressed, though it surely hangs in the air between us.
“I see,” he says. “You wish to cling to your virtue, and in the process, you are prepared to maim, kill, and finally die.”
“Yes.”
He crouches down so that his terribly handsome, awfully alien face is close to mine. His eyes are a golden green hue, with glowing rims around the corneas. He shines with intensity. For a brief moment, I am back in my room as a teenager, gazing at his picture on my wall, feeling a deep sense of longing for someone who is a complete stranger to me and a connection that does not truly exist even now. He’s still a stranger, no matter how close he is.
“You are afraid of all the wrong things, princess,” he says with surprising gentleness. I didn’t know he was capable of emitting sounds in that register. He’s usually so gruff and growly.
“I don’t think I am.”
“Of course you don’t. You have a virgin’s experience and a virgin’s fears. For those fears, you have made yourself into something quite terrible.”